Two-Lane Blacktop
Two-Lane Blacktop is a 1971 road movie directed by Monte Hellman, starring singer-songwriter James Taylor, the Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson, Warren Oates, and Laurie Bird. "Blacktop" means an asphalt road.Esquire magazine declared the film its movie of the year for 1971, and even published the entire screenplay in its April 1971 issue, but the film was not a commercial success. The film has since become a counterculture-era cult classic. Brock Yates, organizer of the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash (better known as the Cannonball Run) cites Two-Lane Blacktop as one source of inspiration for the creation of the race, and commented on it in his Car and Driver column announcing the first Cannonball. Two-Lane Blacktop is notable as a time capsule film of U.S. Route 66 during the pre-Interstate Highway era, and for its stark footage and minimal dialogue. As such, it has become popular with fans of Route 66. Two-Lane Blacktop has been compared to similar road movies with an existentialist message from the era, such as Vanishing Point, Easy Rider, and Electra Glide in Blue. In 2012, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Plot Two street racers, the Driver (Taylor) and the Mechanic (Wilson) live on the road in their highly modified, primer-gray, 1955 Chevrolet 150 two-door sedan drag car and drift from town to town, making their income by challenging local residents to impromptu drag races. As they drive east on Route 66 from Needles, California, they pick up the Girl (Bird), a female hitchhiker, in Flagstaff, Arizona when she gets into their car at a diner. Although the Driver develops a crush on the Girl, she sleeps with the Mechanic when the Driver goes out drinking one night. In New Mexico, they begin to encounter another car driver, GTO (Oates), on the highways. An atmosphere of hostility develops between the two parties. Although Oates is not an overt street racer, and, in fact, seems to know little about cars, a cross-country race to Washington, D.C. is suggested. The Driver proposes that the prize should be "for pinks," or legal ownership of the loser's car. Along the way, GTO picks up various hitchhikers, including an importuning homosexual hitchhiker (Harry Dean Stanton). When GTO's inexperience becomes apparent, he, the Driver and the Mechanic form an uneasy alliance; the Driver even drives with him for a while when GTO gets fatigued. Needing money, the Driver, the Mechanic and GTO compete at a race track in Memphis. While the Driver finishes his race, the Girl hops into GTO's car and they leave. The Driver pursues them to a diner located on US129 (today the location is known as the Tail of the Dragon) where the Girl has just rejected GTO's idea to visit Chicago. The Driver proposes going to Columbus, Ohio to get parts, but the Girl rejects him too. Instead, she leaves with a stranger on a motorcycle, abandoning her belongings in the parking lot. Later, GTO picks up two soldiers and tells them that he won his car by beating two men driving a custom-built 1955 Chevrolet 150 in a cross-country race. At an airstrip in East Tennessee, the Driver races against an El Camino. Category:Films Category:Live-action films Category:1971 films Category:Drama films Category:R-rated films